The Flash of a Firefly

by Amber Riley

  Amber Riley

  iUniverse, Inc.

  New York Bloomington

  The Flash of a Firefly

  Kindred Blood: Book One

  Copyright © 2010 Amber Riley

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously

  iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

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  ISBN: 978-1-4502-3206-7 (pbk)

  ISBN: 978-1-4502-1773-6 (cloths)

  ISBN: 978-1-4502-1772-9 (ebook)

  Printed in the United States of America

  iUniverse rev. date: 6/3/10

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  For Nonny and Poppy, who have always been there through thick and thin.

  “What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”

  Crowfoot

  Chapter 1

  As a self-respecting vampire, I shouldn’t lurk around cemeteries. It was creepy and cliché, not to mention pointless. The only people there were six feet under. Lucky bastards.

  I sighed and leaned my head against the bark of an oak tree. Sirens were blaring somewhere in the city, but everything was still and quiet among the headstones.

  I flicked my cell phone open. There were no missed calls. What could be taking Merv so long? He didn’t answer when I called him, and he had never been late in the six months he had been working for me. It was his one redeeming quality.

  His exact words to me the first time we met were, “I’ve always known Dracula was real. I’ve seen all the movies. You don’t look like I thought you would. Where’s the cape?” It was not the greatest first impression.

  About nine years before Bram Stoker wrote his novel, Dracula had been killed by the Enforcement Team for calling too much attention to us. People still talked about Jack the Ripper.

  But that was beside the point. What he expected me to look like always confused me. I was pale; I had fangs. Maybe he expected me to skulk around in the shadows with a crazed, blood-hungry look on my face.

  I chuckled and glanced at my cell phone again. Maybe I had enough blood to last me through the next couple of days. There was a lot to do the next few nights, though. I would probably use up my supply before we could reschedule. There was nothing to do but wait.

  A mouse skittered along the base of a nearby angel statue. It froze ten feet from the tree I was leaning against and watched me. I looked it straight in its beady little eyes and participated in the world’s stupidest staring contest. I would have won, too, but a set of headlights caught my attention as a dark green Festiva rolled slowly around the bend. It was about time.

  The gears screeched as the driver threw the car into park. Merv fought with the door for a little while before rolling the window down and using the outside handle. He finally hopped out, huffing and puffing, with a giant smile on his freckled face.

  “Hi.” He waddled forward, pulling my suitcase behind him. His smile faltered when he saw me scowling. He pushed his glasses up his nose with a pudgy finger. “Sorry, Kaden.”

  “I’m assuming you have a good reason for keeping me here for over an hour.” Truthfully, I didn’t really want to hear the lame excuse he would come up with, but since I didn’t like him, I didn’t feel like letting him off completely scot-free.

  “I g-got held up at S-Sid’s,” he stammered. “There was this guy that wanted to fight me.”

  “It’s not like you to get into it with people,” I said. “Where was Sid? Or Reece?”

  He shrugged. “Reece was there.”

  I held my breath as my irritation rose to the surface. If I was paying the two strongest werewolves in the city to keep an eye on the moron, then I didn’t expect to hear he was fighting with anyone.

  “Then what was he doing?” I asked.

  “He was … You know, I don’t need anyone to babysit me.” He peered over his glasses at me with a defiant look and rambled on about being an adult.

  It was part of the deal. He supplied me with blood, and I kept him out of danger. None of the men before Merv had been this difficult to keep intact. Granted, he had never gotten into a bar fight before, but he was perfectly capable of being troublesome in other ways.

  Merv puffed his chest out and ended his tirade with, “I can look after myself.”

  “Of course you can, Merv.” I flicked a bug off my sleeve. “Nevertheless …”

  “If I can survive that vampire, then I can survive just about anything, so I—”

  “Vampire?” I interrupted. He had my attention now. “What vampire?”

  He looked at me like I was an idiot and spoke slowly like he was talking to a small child. “The one that wanted to fight with me at Sid’s tonight. Were you listening to me?”

  As far as I knew, vampires didn’t go to Sid’s bar. It was more of a human hangout than anything else. Maybe a werewolf here and there. Something was wrong. I grabbed the suitcase from Merv and turned to go.

  “Hey, are you going to do some vampire stuff tonight?” He clasped his hands in front of his chest and started following me.

  I sighed, irritated. “No, Merv. You can’t come with me.”

  He mumbled something under his breath and stormed back to his car. He could be mad. I was the one that waited an hour in the middle of Calvary Cemetery just to humor him. Deep breaths, I told myself. It was only another couple decades until I would get a replacement for him.

  I didn’t find that thought very comforting as I rushed from the cemetery. I could still make it to Manhattan if I visited Sid in Queens first. There were hours before daylight.

  I ran by a used car lot surrounded by a tall chain-link fence at a speed the human eye couldn’t detect, and rounded the corner. There were several coffee shops and restaurants still open within the next two blocks, and people were milling around outside. An older man was selling meat kabobs from a cart on the corner. The smell from the grill traveled half a block before disappearing into the night.

  My destination wasn’t far. Another block, and—

  I came to an abrupt stop inches away from a group of people exiting a bar. They piled out onto the sidewalk, laughing and talking, totally oblivious to the world around them. At least they were too drunk to realize how quickly
I appeared next to them.

  I took a deep breath and stepped forward before freezing in place. I had to blink repeatedly to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. There was a face among the women who had just cut me off that was familiar. Too familiar.

  Long, dark hair cascaded down her back in waves, and her pale skin stood out against her little black dress. It was impossible. The person I was thinking of was in Spain. I blinked again and watched as they piled into one of the cars parked at the curb.

  You’re seeing things, I told myself. But if it was who I thought it was, then there was going to be trouble. The feeling that something was wrong multiplied tenfold. I watched, numb, as the car drove past me. I had to find out what was going on.

  Another block down, I stopped outside Sid’s. There was a new sign hanging above the door. Bold blue letters were carved into a massive piece of wood with gold etched onto the border. It was amazing to me that he would spend money on something like that when the walls inside were stained a dingy yellow from years of smoke, and the floor was in desperate need of refinishing. The cushions on the bar stools were cracking, and the felt on the pool table was starting to wear thin. New light fixtures wouldn’t be a bad idea. Despite all that, Sid had a decent number of customers every night. Two-for-one specials and attractive bartenders could really bring in a crowd.

  I pulled the suitcase over the threshold and quietly hid it behind a long jacket hanging on the hook near the door. If anyone wanted to steal a bunch of blood, they could be my guest.

  Reece was moving around the end of the bar with a broom in one hand and a dustpan in the other. He was wearing a T-shirt with an eighties band logo scrawled across the chest, and his blond hair was crunchy with gel. The picture-perfect college kid; no one would ever suspect that he turned furry at least once a month.

  He was concentrating on emptying the dustpan when I appeared next to him. He jumped, dropping the lid to the garbage. He fumbled with it for a moment before setting it back on top of the can. “God, Kaden. Be careful where you do that whole appear-out-of-thin-air thing, would you? We’ve got customers.”

  I smiled sarcastically, making sure my fangs were hidden. “Tell me what happened with Merv tonight.”

  He grabbed a rag and started scrubbing the water stains from the bar. Red began creeping up from his neck into his cheeks. “Honestly, I don’t know what happened.” With the buzz of chatter and music surrounding us, it was hard to hear his whispers. “One second they were sitting there; the next second the guy had his hands around Merv’s throat.”

  “Who?” I snapped. “What did they look like?”

  A man at the bar pushed an empty bottle toward Reece. He grabbed it and threw it into a large bin beneath the bar. “Hey, can I get another one?” he asked. Reece ignored him, continuing to scrub. “She was really pretty with dark hair. The guy had a little bit of an accent. Why? What’s up?”

  My hands itched at my sides. Deep breaths, I thought. It was important to remain calm. I wasn’t sure anything was wrong, and anger solved nothing. I was probably becoming paranoid. There were countless vampires fitting those descriptions.

  “Hire a couple more people to help out,” I told him. “I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

  “If this is about letting Merv get into trouble, then you don’t have to worry. It won’t happen again.” He darted back behind the bar and grabbed the man’s wrist as he reached for a beer sitting in ice. “Not a good idea, buddy.”

  “It’s only partially about that.” I crossed the room and grabbed my suitcase again. “I’ve got some things to look into.”

  “Kaden, what’s going on?” he called after me, sounding slightly nervous.

  Chapter 2

  The heat blew across the floor and up my pant legs as I unloaded the blood bags into the mini-fridge in my bedroom. It felt good against my skin. With my diet, I never felt warm. But I refused to steal the heat from anything living, and I was therefore resigned to that fact.

  There was one thing that helped a little. Scalding hot showers thawed me out. My joints would loosen, and I could feel almost normal. As long as the hot water lasted, I would let it pound my skin and take some of my stress down the drain with the soap. It was then, and only then, when no one was around, that I could allow myself to remember the rush of the hunt, the sensation of sinking my fangs into flesh, their pulse beneath my lips, and the rush their blood gave me as it flowed over my tongue.

  I pulled myself back to reality. I was on a mission; there wasn’t time to think about that. If that woman was who I thought it was, then I was probably being investigated. As an investigator, she would have gone to the club I owned. Someone there would have seen her.

  Every little sound seemed to echo off the walls around me as I finished putting the blood away. The house was too big for one person, or even for five people. It was more for show than for comfort, but it provided the perfect amount of privacy.

  I reached up to the top shelf of my closet and grabbed a shoe box. I flung the lid aside, followed by the entire box. I grabbed the next, then the next. Each was full of information. I had stolen them when I left Spain, hoping to figure out if there were any more lies to uncover. It wasn’t enough that my entire afterlife had been a giant fabrication. I wanted the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Unfortunately, I came up empty-handed in regards to the shoe boxes. All I managed to get out of the country were vampire profiles and a few locket-sized portraits. If I had just had more time to look, I was sure I would have found something more.

  Once the chocolate brown carpet was covered with things I should have thrown away long ago, I found it—the box with the portraits. As luck would have it, the one I was looking for was sitting right on top. The same girl I had seen earlier was posed, unsmiling, with her hair piled on top of her head. With it tucked safely into my back pocket, I took off for Manhattan.

  It was only after I got there that I realized my keys were sitting at home. I hadn’t planned on needing them before I got sidetracked, and after that, I had been too preoccupied to even think about them. So I knocked and then I waited in the cold October air.

  The Amaryllis was the club that I used as a cover. There had to be some sort of legitimate income in case anyone ever came asking, and there was plenty coming in from the club. It was in a great location for nightlife. The building was red brick with white awnings over dark windows. The inside had been completely redone to open up the layout. Upstairs, velvet couches were positioned around square glass tables overlooking the dance floor and bar below.

  I heard someone hurry toward the door, their heels clicking on the tile. Jessica swung the door open with a smile. The bags under her eyes didn’t suit her very well, and her auburn hair was frizzing around her oval face. There was a large cranberry juice stain running down the entire front of her blue dress.

  “You look like hell,” I told her. “You drank one of those energy drinks again, didn’t you?”

  “I might have.” She beamed, trotting after me.

  Music was still playing from the DJ booth. It was some upbeat song I didn’t recognize. I assumed it was to keep her awake while she finished cleaning up, since the club had been closed for a couple hours.

  “You know they’re not good for you,” I said.

  She laughed. “Kaden, you do care.”

  “I don’t want to worry about finding someone else to run this place for me.” From the look of the new bartender behind the bar, I knew it wouldn’t be easy to find someone as good as Jessica, especially since she knew what I was. It always made things easier when I didn’t have to hide.

  I watched as Max slowly hung a martini glass upside down above the bar. He was trying not to let the base of the glass touch the opening. It reminded me of the game Operation. The only difference was that nothing was going to happen if the glass touched the sides. It was a mystery how he got anything done.

  “There are water spots on that one,” Jessica said, plopping onto a stool.

>   Max blushed and stuck the glass back into the water. He had that certain boy-next-door charm about him, completed by his Southern accent. He must have been in his own little world not to have noticed me come in, but he jumped when he saw me standing there. His elbow knocked a glass onto the floor, shattering it.

  “Never mind him; he gets nervous around you,” Jessica said to get my attention back.

  I forced myself to stop watching him scramble to pick up the broken glass, crossing my fingers in the hope that he didn’t cut himself. I was too thirsty to smell fresh blood. I didn’t know why I even bothered hiring humans. I must have been a masochist.

  “So, what are you doing here so late?” she asked.

  My gaze unconsciously floated back to Max, who was still picking up the pieces of glass gingerly between two fingers and dropping them into the garbage one by one. I wondered what it would take to light a fire under him. Attack dogs? An ax murderer?

  “Earth to Kaden,” Jessica called, waving her hand in front of my face.

  I motioned for her to follow me to one of the lounges. I didn’t want Mr. Jumpy overhearing us. I couldn’t imagine his reaction to the truth if he was that on edge to begin with.

  When we sat on one of the maroon sectionals, far out of Max’s hearing range, I pulled the portrait from my pocket. I looked down at it and let out a breath. “This is very important. Do you recognize her?” I asked, handing the portrait to her. “Has she been in here?”

  She stared at the portrait, covering a piece with her finger and then uncovering it again. She turned it one way and then the other, finally shaking her head. “No, I haven’t seen her.”

  I leaned back, scowling. “That doesn’t mean she wasn’t here.”

  Jessica shook her head again. “I don’t see everyone that passes through.”